


Reunion

by dainochild



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions
Genre: M/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dainochild/pseuds/dainochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After two years away, Black returns, and he's most excited about seeing Cheren again. Unfortunately, Cheren's not exactly thrilled with the circumstances around Black's departure or return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [A tumblr anon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=A+tumblr+anon).



> Prompt was "PLEASE DO KUROSHIPPING". I think I'd recently finished BW2 so I decided to take it in this direction.

Two years was a really long time to spend away from your friends, but White had been right — Black really needed the time away from Unova. In a way, he was extremely relieved to find that there was a new hero everybody was celebrating and making cartoons of just because the attention had made him so uncomfortable. He was, of course, extremely angry that Team Plasma had tried to take over the region _again_ , quite disappointed and worried that N had tried to stop Ghetsis and failed (but he was always worried about the psychological state of his enemy-turned-friend, from things as simple as ‘how capable is he of getting food for himself’ to things as extreme as ‘why would he still live in that castle what the fuck’) and a little excited for the inevitable challenge the new hero, Rosa, sometimes called Ivory, would make when she heard Black had returned.

But most of all, Black was excited to see Cheren again. He was of course looking forward to seeing his mother, Bianca, Professor Juniper, pretty much everything in Nuvema, but he wanted to see Cheren most of all. He’d worried about leaving Cheren with little warning or explanation, but thought some space would be the best thing. Though he’d sent Cheren texts, letters, presents, all the works, very regularly, Cheren hadn’t replied to many. When he did reply, it was a brief ‘I’m glad you’re okay’, ‘Good you’re having fun’, that kind of thing that didn’t really sound like Cheren. Okay, even if Cheren had replied sounding like himself, it wouldn’t’ve been enough for Black. He wanted to see the crinkles around Cheren’s eyes when he smiled softly and the slight tightening of his hands to resist his own jealousy.

When he told White something to this extent, she said, “That’s like, super gay” before going off to make out with her Kanto girlfriend.

That girlfriend was why White was still in Kanto. After a week of insisting it was just a fling and of course she was ready to leave and go back home, she changed her mind minutes before boarding their flight and ran away. Black had already warned Mom that White probably wouldn’t be coming back, so she wasn’t too disappointed not to see her and just cried in excitement and fussed over her ‘darling Hilly’.

Bianca came over not long after, now wearing glasses and pants and walking as though the world was at her feet instead of on her shoulders. She still hugged Black tightly and squeaked his name in excitement. She was probably going to ask where he’d been and say she wanted to go too.

“Did you update your PokéDex with all the new pokémon you saw?!”

Black blinked. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Lemme see, lemme see!”

“Bianca’s quite the little scientist now,” Mom explained with a tiny little smirk. “Her parents are very proud, never stop bragging about her field work all over the place. Just last week she was at a conference in, where was it again?”

“Kalos,” Bianca replied. “Lumiose, even! It was really exciting. Did you go there too, Black?”

“Uh, for a bit it —”

“Isn’t it great?!” Bianca gushed. “I’m so glad Professor Juniper took me along!”

Bianca was basically the same really, just a less restrained version of her sixteen-year-old self with the confidence to believe she deserved to be less restrained. It was nice to see, just surprising. Black had almost expected everything to be how it was before he’d left, minus the celebrity thing he didn’t like.

When Mom left them alone, Bianca leant closer and whispered, “Sooo, when’re you gonna see Cherry?”

“I dunno, I guess we can go over now?” Black suggested, looking around to see what Mom was doing. Cooking. “I dunno why he’s not here, though.”

Bianca frowned. “Didn’t he tell you? He lives in Aspertia now.”

Black’s eyes widened. “What?!”

Bianca nodded insistently. “He’s their Gym Leader. Normal-type specialty.”

“He doesn’t even have any Normal-type pokémon!” Black protested. “Why isn’t he a Dark-type leader or something?”

“He doesn’t believe emo’s a way of life anymore, I don’t know,” Bianca sighed. “More importantly, he didn’t tell you?”

“No, he’s barely said anything to me since I left.”

Bianca’s frown deepened. “Oh…”

Black groaned. “What’d I do?!”

“I don’t know!” Bianca cried. “I thought he was talking to you! I didn’t see him for eighteen months after you left!”

Black whined. “He probably thinks I hate him now!”

“Or that you only came back because we found N,” Bianca suggested. “…did you only come back because we found N?”

“No!” Black cried. “Kinda! A bit! But I know you’re trying to suggest I’m in _love_ with him or something and that’s not it at all!”

Bianca shrugged. “Well, when you go running off saying it’s to find him and only come back to see us after he’s turned up again…”

Black stood up. He strode to the kitchen. “Hey, Mom? I’m gonna —”

“Go to Aspertia?” she guessed. “Hilly, dear, if you wanna keep things from me, don’t shout about them, okay?”

Black nodded.

“Do you know the way?” Bianca asked.

“…no. But I know Cheren’s there.”

Bianca smiled softly. “You’re still hopeless, Black. Come on, you can follow me and Unfezant.”

Aspertia was across Unova, and Unfezant was much slower than Reshiram (who was offended to have to restrain her flight enough to accommodate). It took almost two hours to reach the city, at which point the sun was starting to set. When they landed and people started peering out their windows to see the majestic legendary dragon who shook the ground so much Black thought that maybe his usual travelling with Reshiram wasn’t the best thing to do in Unova. In other regions, Reshiram’s legend was obscure enough to allow it. Here, he got people gasping and whispering “He’s back!” while Reshiram preened.

“Quit that,” Black muttered.

Reshiram snorted embers at him.

“Fine, stay here and show off if you want,” Black said. “I’m gonna go find Cheren.” He started to walk away.

“U-uh, is that really smart?” Bianca asked. “I mean, Reshiram’s…”

“She can look after herself,” Black replied. “So. Um. Where’s this Gym?”

Bianca lead him down the street and pointed up another. Black recognised the Gym logo, but it really looked more like a school.

“Do you want me to come?” Bianca asked.

Black shook his head. “Honestly? I kinda wanna, um… kiss him. Yeah.”

Bianca shrugged, not remotely surprised. “Okay, see ya later then.”

Black stood perfectly still, eyes locked on the Gym, until she turned around the corner. He drew in a deep breath before running down the street. When he burst into the Gym, for a moment, he thought he’d managed to end up in the wrong place. It _was_ a school.

“Uh, sir, we’re about to close,” a staff member apologetically said. “The Gym Leader’s out the back, but he’s done for the day, so if you come back after nine tomorrow —”

“I’m his friend,” Black insisted. “So, um, which way?”

The staff member pointed to a corridor. “Down there, right at the back. He’s cooling his pokémon down.”

“Thank you,” Black said, with a slight bow he’d picked up from too much time in Kanto and couldn’t stop before he embarrassed himself. He turned quickly and ran down to the back of the Gym. It was an open stadium, with soft dirt on the ground and clearly painted lines. And in the middle, Cheren was enthusiastically praising a lillipup and a patrat. Black had never seen him praising his pokémon so much before, and the fact that it was a lillipup and a patrat did surprise him a lot. Cheren hadn’t exactly held such common pokémon in high regard two years ago.

“You both did extremely well today,” Cheren told them as he patted them. Patted them! And they gazed up at him with complete adoration! “I’m very proud of you.”

It felt like stumbling in on something intimate. Black thought about sneaking back to the building for a moment, but what if Cheren had already noticed him and was ignoring him? He had to say something.

“U-uh, Cheren…?”

Cheren immediately looked up. His eyes already looked wider without his glasses, but they widened even more at the sight of Black. “You…” He turned to his pokémon, hastily returning them before standing up. He glanced Black up and down. “You look exactly the same.”

Black didn’t dare say that Cheren looked like a sexy teacher. He shrugged. “I haven’t been doing anything different. But you… wow.”

Cheren blushed. Black missed how easy it was to make Cheren blush. “Alder needed a favour, and he was training me, so I did it.”

“I think it’s great,” Black said. “You. Um. You’d be a really good Gym Leader. Um, I mean, I’m sure you _are_ a really good Gym Leader, it’s just, I was surprised to hear it and —”

“Why are you here?” Cheren asked.

Black frowned. “To see you, why else?”

“I thought you’d be with N.”

“I only just got back,” Black replied. “I’ll check on him later, it doesn’t sound like he’s in any immediate danger.”

Cheren huffed. “And was he in any immediate danger when you dropped everything to spend _two years_ looking for him?”

Black frowned. “I thought so. But that wasn’t the only reason I left, you know.”

“I know, I just didn’t imagine you needed to escape us that badly,” Cheren bitterly replied.

“I wasn’t escaping _you_ ,” Black insisted. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you for more than a few intense battles, you know! I was escaping all the pressure here, maybe you think that was irresponsible, but I never asked for any of it and it was messing with my head.”

“So you came back after that was passed on to Rosa,” Cheren icily said. “Well done. It’s a wonder she and her brother idolise you at all.”

This wasn’t at all what Black had expected. He’d thought Cheren might be a little jealous about the N thing and the timing around that (Cheren was always jealous of N and Black’s weird relationship) but he hadn’t expected him to be so hostile, or to sound so… right.

Black’s gaze fell to the ground. “I’m sorry. I didn’t imagine any of this would happen. I didn’t even hear about it until it was over.”

“Hmm.”

“You could’ve told me,” Black replied. “If you’d ever really responded to anything I sent you.”

“And drag you away from N?” Cheren scoffed.

“That’s so not even in the same league!” Black cried. “I didn’t even think N could function, I thought he was dying somewhere, but you can look after yourself better than anybody I know! You’re much tougher, much more capable and I’ve never needed to baby you, so don’t get jealous about that! I was wrong about him, but I’ve never been wrong about you, okay?” He gestured around at the Gym. “Look at everything you’ve done! All without me!”

“I never wanted it to be without you,” Cheren snapped. “You never asked, Black. Maybe I wanted to go with you, or maybe I needed you to stay. How would you know? You _never_ asked.”

Black scrunched his eyes shut. He didn’t want to cry in front of Cheren. “I’m sorry, okay?! I’m really sorry! Please just… stop being angry at me, I missed you more than anything.”

Cheren didn’t say anything for a minute. He sighed heavily and moved closer. Black tensed, but Cheren wrapped his arms tightly around Black and breathily whispered against his neck, “You idiot.”

Black clung to him.

“Was being a famous hero really that bad?” Cheren wondered.

Black nodded. “I didn’t wanna be famous for that. Not cos of all the suffering Team Plasma caused. A-and, I got all the credit, cos of Reshiram, but I didn’t do any of it alone and… and… yeah.”

Cheren’s arms tightened around him. “I’m… sorry too. For being so angry. And not replying.”

“Good,” Black said. “Cos, cos y’know, I really love you.”

Though neither had never said anything of the sort before, Black wasn’t too surprised when Cheren said, “Good. Me too.”

Cheren kissed him when Black pulled away.

“I gotta go back to Nuvema, my mum, you know,” Black explained. “But, d’ya wanna come?”

Cheren thought about it for a moment. “I probably shouldn’t, but it is a special occasion.”

Grinning, Black threw his arms back around Cheren and kissed him again. Shouting at each other sucked, but Black felt closer than ever to Cheren in a way that had nothing to do with physical distance or kissing and everything to do with honesty and, better, understanding what they’d both done wrong.

Mom wasn’t remotely surprised when Black turned up with Cheren, just pulled out another plate and told Black to lay it next to his own as Bianca laughed.

During the pauses in conversation, Black would slip his hand under the table and find Cheren’s waiting to hold it.


End file.
